At our last meeting...

We spent a lot of time discussing how to give feedback using rubrics. It is easy to confuse checklists with rubrics.

Checklists work well for assigning grades - they usually list characteristics that a teachere is looking for and rate student performance on a scale (1-5, 1-10, etc.) . The problem with checklists: What differentiates a 3 from a 4, etc.? Another problem: Why is the highest number usually the best, when most kids want to be "Number 1"? Checklists are faster to create, though, and work well with summative assessment techniques, like one-time projects.A real rubric is much more text-based.

A rubric is a matrix of cells with descriptions of student work within each cell. Teachers still circle to indicate student performance, but this time the item circled gives students feedback on what students did well and what they might do to improve their work in the future. Teachers can still assign point values to each cell if desired. Rubrics are formative (they help inform students about their performance) work well with repeated assessment tasks, like writing samples, reports, essays, etc., and can be used with one-time projects as well.

Both rubrics and checklists should be gone over with students before beginning an assessment task so students understand what they'll need to do and how their performance will be assessed. Also, both can be created with student input. Let kids help you decide what characteristics to grade and how each characteristic should be assessed.

Last - and this is hard for first-time teachers - show kids what good work looks like by either creating the project yourself before presenting it or by saving student work from previous terms/years.

For help with creating rubrics, see www.rubistar.4teachers.com/